The Treaty of Treason
by jesswess
Summary: When Panem's districts launch into a turbulent rebellion, 17-year-old Maddox finds himself in the midst of it all, just trying to survive in the wave of anger and violence. But this new rebellion could potentially shake the future of Panem forever and leave Maddox trying to survive in many other ways... because, as it turns out, there are much worse games to play.
1. The Game

It was almost like a game.

The survivors were the players, the casualties cruel reminders. The survivors were the victors in life, and the losses were quite clearly the losers. The game was never fun, but it was necessary when it meant survival.

At first, aside from the initial shock and fear, it wasn't too difficult to survive, with an abundance of resources already at their fingertips, but there was always the cloud of worry and change and curiosity hanging in the backs of their minds. The occasional polls and tallies were scrawled where they could be. There were guesses of when they might run out, or who might die first among them, or who might be the last remaining. They could survive the hunger for a long time, and companionship in a new world of no classes and only the will to survive made it all much easier to swallow—

But then there was the desperation. Desperation changed everything. The games came further into play; the disasters had left what remained of the world in bits and pieces, pieces for those left behind to move around to get what they wanted, sometimes successfully and others not so much. In time, the survivors pushed and shoved and scrambled for food and resources to the point of fighting for it. Sometimes killing for it.

It was a resource war when resources were scarce. So, when the realized the state of disarray, when they realized the world that had fallen to incoherent pieces, they came together again.

Everyone, from one side of the continent to the other, gathered together in their respective dwellings. They learned from one another. They used their skills to build tools and improve their living. They passed on correspondence, spread the word of a new promise.

They made a plan, because the game had to end.

Word spread of creating a society where all could share their own skills and put them together to create a world of abundance they had once lost. Put together, they named this promise of abundance The Horn of Plenty.

Then it was called Panem, a nation of peace and prosperity, where the continent was cut into districts depending on their location and the resources available there. These districts were then separated by skill sets, which all put together what they made and did and provided by a certain point in time. More-so, they provided for the Capitol, a protected land that promised to make good use of the Horn of Plenty—a land that was assured to those who worked hard enough to reap its benefits.

But the years passed, and something changed.

Nobody was sure why or how, but it wasn't the same as promised. The districts became more desolate, more detached from the Capitol that once used to serve as a symbol of the promise of Panem as a whole. The Capitol carried through with some promises, certainly; it aimed to protect all that lived in the districts, aimed to connect them. It gave them education. It gave them laws to keep the peace. It gave them security, gave them the ability to know that this was what their life would be, that no disaster or war of hunger might plague them again.

The Capitol provided, but only just—and soon it outgrew all of them. The land became more abundant than ever, the people living there became more complacent and far against any ideas of change. The buildings grew taller and the society developed its own culture, leaving the districts in the dust—leaving them breathing the dust of coal and smoke they once tried to avoid.

 _But the Capitol provided_ , they were taught to know as children in the tenements of all the districts beneath it. The Capitol was there for them. And so it would always be.

If anything, that never changed and never would. On the official buildings of all the districts while continually touting the same phrase that started it all:

Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever.

 _Forever._

Today.

" _Today_ ," a voice droned over the loudspeaker, " _textile workers in Factory One will put in two extra hours due to a recent machine malfunction in Factory Two. Take note that whoever does not report or whoever leaves early will be reprimanded_."

Maddox was just on his way to school when he had to turn around.

It was a constant tug of war between education for the seventeen year old part of him and work for the able-bodied part, both of which his wits relied on to stay sane. Work seemed to win the daily tug of war most of the time, with the announcer slipping in an extra work hour or two just before school was to start.

Luckily, though, extended factory hours were seemingly the only surprising thing in life that he had to face. The entirely gray surroundings of District 8 left little to be surprised about. They were complacent there. They didn't mind things too much there. So he never tried to protest it, knowing that it got food on his and his sister's plates at the end of the day.

The day passed without any further surprises. Maddox went to the same textile factory that his parents had died in. He put in his sweat and blood and dirt into working at the machines, and he walked back home, exhausted and covered in dirt. Sometimes on a good day, he would feel like taking a sprint around the area if he hadn't worked too much, simply because running allowed him to clear his mind—but his eyes could barely stay open today, so he headed home.

He liked to observe everything around him when it walked home, even if it wasn't much to see. Despite the grayness and the small feeling of the district, it was actually fairly large. The Capitol-sanctioned buildings had multiple concrete stories, giving the area an interesting skyline if ever you saw it on a hill. The tenements, like the one he lived in, lined along the streets in rows, with the rows occasionally interrupted by the presence of a warehouse or, more likely, some factories, upon which the district thrived. Usually, to enforce the law, some guards were stood in certain more populated areas, like the heart of the town with the deceptively large City Hall, or the neighborhood where Maddox lived not too far from it. Maddox didn't pay much attention to them. Nobody ever did; they tried to pretend they weren't there at all, but of course, it was much harder to ignore a presence like theirs.

On his way back, he spotted some of his fellow textile workers as well as his classmates and neighbors. Some were too busy working or getting food to pay him attention. One classmate he only occasionally talked to, named Briony, waved absentmindedly at him in passing. He tiredly waved back before automatically wiping at his forehead, where some soot had been left behind according to his reflection in a nearby window.

The sun had just begun to set when he got home. The door creaked in protest, and he was immediately greeted with two voices.

In normal circumstances after his parents' deaths, Maddox would have only lived with his sister. But their neighbor, Lior, had no family of her own in District 8—so the three of them decidedly lived together as a way to cope, knowing that the house would fit them. The authorities didn't seem to mind the arrangement, or else they were entirely oblivious to it.

"Good, you're back," said Lior at the door of the kitchen, a flustered twenty-one year old picture of blonde hair and blue eyes. She moved over to the dinner table—a hulking slab of granite—and set something down on it.

"You say that every time I come back from the factory," said Maddox as he walked in.

"Well, with your parents…" She faltered, as though she hadn't meant to say that, until she shrugged. "You never know."

Maddox did know, but he tried not to think about it. "It's been a few years, Lior. It's okay."

"Anyway." Lior cleared her throat and gestured to the table.

"Is that…?" Maddox hurried to the table in shock, looking at the meat before him, which he hardly ever saw presented so proudly on the table. Then something clicked, and he looked back up at his roommate, who averted her eyes, knowing exactly what he was doing.

"You put in a debt card, didn't you?"

"We haven't had actual meat in days, Maddox," Lior muttered. "You've been working. I've been working. The black market and the Capitol market have raised all the prices."

"It's not worth a debt card, Lior… It's just a longer death sentence."

"A longer work schedule," Lior corrected. "That's all."

"Don't you want to live?"

"Don't you want to survive?"

Maddox said nothing further, staring at her. She still wasn't looking at him, only attempting to wipe some dust from her hands. She had to have been working all day, so how she even managed to go to the markets at all worried him, but it didn't surprise him.

"Did you just get home?"

"Yeah," said Lior, finally sitting down with him to slice the small sliver of meat between them. "We just got back from the market, actually."

Then Maddox noticed the absence of another voice to echo her. "Where's the other half of 'we'?"

"Over here!" a much younger voice called.

Maddox turned around, only to be attacked by his eleven year old sister, Amity. He grunted in soreness before hugging her back. Then he surprised even himself by using his father's daily line; he only realized recently that the reason for saying it was because there wasn't much else to talk about without feeling near to tears.

"How was school?"

Amity plopped onto the concrete bench, which was a little too low from the table; she had to sit on her knees. "Good, I guess. We learned about the resource war."

"How did they write it this time?" Lior mused, exchanging a glance with Maddox, who understood the intonation.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know… They tend to rewrite some paragraphs every so often."

Amity merely shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't really pay attention. But I do know the motto!" She sat up as if she was born to recite it, clearing her throat, puffing out her chest, and singing, "Panem today, Panem tomorrow—"

"Panem forever," they chorused.

"Amen," Maddox whispered.

Lior slapped his arm in passing.

Dinner wasn't much, but it was enough. Lior had even managed to scrape by with an apple, which Maddox considered dessert, for it was hard to find something sweeter. Amity was just as excited to receive her third of the fruit, so much that she ate what remained of the core.

They were nearly finished with the meal when the projector above their heads came to life.

The screen came out of nowhere, appearing on the blank wall that sat opposite the table. There, an unfamiliar yet entirely too familiar scene played out before them—a video of the latest achievements of the districts, with interviews of some people that lived in the Capitol positively raving about them. In time, they got to District 8, showing off some of the latest fashions from Capitol-renowned designers. After touting the brilliance of the new fashion trends, a voice came over the narration.

"Honestly, though, we are in _dire_ need of more excitement in the fashion world," said an outlandishly-dressed woman with rainbow hair.

Lior grumpily glanced down at her own bland gray shirt.

"I'm still hungry," said Amity quietly, hugging herself as if in response to her stomach growling.

"I know," said Maddox. "Me too."

"There's no more?"

"No." He hated to say it, but he had to be honest. "Shh, now. We have to watch this."

"Why?"

He reached over and ruffled her hair. "We just have to."

Amity, though, was watching with somewhat glassy eyes, something coming to her expression. It was a familiar expression; Maddox only ever saw it in the eyes of older children in the markets when they had to watch the television, when they finally realized that the items their parents made were nowhere to be found except in the faraway fantasy land that was the Capitol.

Maddox's heart sank, but he tried not to show it; he never tried to show his emotions to anyone if he could help it, but with things as they were recently, it was a much harder task.

"Something wrong?" he asked, making his voice light as he finished his apple slice.

His sister looked back at him, a troubled expression on her face. "Why do we have to watch the television every night?"

Her question cut through the narration on screen like a knife. Usually, they would say that they needed to be quiet during Capitol time, but they rendered the scene quiet as it was.

He knew this question would come eventually, but it still caught Maddox off guard. So Lior took it far more gracefully than he ever could, finally pulling her head back up and clearing her throat, as if she had prepared for this explanation for a while.

"They like to show the districts what all our hard work becomes."

"But why can't we use what we make?" She then gestured to the television again, which now showed an extravagant banquet in honor of some sort of anniversary the districts didn't know about nor quite cared about. "Why… Why do they have so much food?"

The silence would have been deafening if not for the strangely accented voices coming from the screen. Amity's eyes were imploring as she looked from her brother to her housemate; the others exchanged glances, desperate to find a way to mention it that wouldn't tear her apart completely.

At long last, Lior moved closer to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder.

"That's just how it is," she said.

That's just how it is.

How it always was, since Panem's inception after the disasters and floods. He thought about how the chaotic clamor for resources ultimately offered a chance of harmony, where every district did their share. And when he thought of that, he figured life now was better than it must have been before, with the resource war changing everyone in worse ways… but he couldn't help but wonder if there was room for more surprises, room for further change.

There had to be, he realized. Good or bad, change had to come—because the resources were becoming scarce again, and there was only so much they could take.

Wasn't there?


	2. Just a Bruise

The announcement box above rang throughout the factory, causing all of the workers young and old to pause obligatorily.

" _Workers in the remaining factories of District 8 are reminded to work two extra hours before clocking out due to the shortage in Factory 1_ ," the voice droned.

Maddox didn't get to hear the rest when it seemed that the whole factory let out a collective breath of frustration. The sound of something pounding followed by a yelling guard made them stop and return to work again.

His friend Felix stood beside him, glancing at the ceiling to make sure nothing else was being announced before he spoke in a hushed tone.

"They changed the wording of the announcement this time," he muttered as he wound his dirty fingers through the workings of his machine. "I was about to harmonize with them."

"Would be an interesting way to go out," said Maddox quietly.

"Go out?"

"Maybe I should say 'get killed.'"

"What, for sass? Maybe the Capitol can loan them a sense of humor."

" _Get to work_!" a voice bellowed down the hall, silencing them instantly.

Quiet.

The silence wasn't very good to hear on that day particularly, if only because Maddox was a little tense. Not only did he have to leave class early to go to work again, but it was a cold day, and the only heat provided for them was the friction of their fingers with the machines. His fingers shook as he worked, his breaths visible as warm air in front of him, matching the steam and smoke of the pollution around him. Lior had given him some gloves with the fingers cut out, but it didn't help very much with the cold, only preventing further calluses from appearing on his palms instead. Still, it was better than nothing.

The cold he could handle, though, for the most part. Worse was the situation earlier, when he had just arrived for his shift. One worker, an older and seemingly more fragile man, accidentally injured himself during work. The rest of the workers were forced to ignore the scene as they worked, though Maddox couldn't help but look, spotting the worker being escorted into the other room. When Maddox caught the eyes of the people around him, all he could see was fear and pity.

When the door closed, there were screams, both angry and afraid, followed by loud thuds of the man's body being thrown against the other side of the wall.

Injuries were not taken lightly at the factories—for the wrong reasons. Halts in production, even briefly, were detrimental to the flow of work they had to undertake, especially if the injured or sick person had to be replaced or the work had to be doubled in their absence. Usually, whenever a person fell ill or got hurt, they tended to power through it until their shift ended, solely because the punishment for failing on the job was far worse than whatever pain they might have felt first.

Eventually, the man was released. It was hard to ignore him this time. The rest of the workers watched in silence as he walked rather pitifully toward the exit, with blood covering his face and his hand covering his chest. (These guards seemed to like breaking ribs.)

The helplessness they felt in these not uncommon situations was always reflected in the victim's eyes, though it was a different type of helplessness entirely. Many knew that they needed or wanted to do something about the extreme reactions of those under the Capitol's reign, but nobody had the courage. Nobody was willing to risk their livelihood because of someone else's mistake.

It was always an unusual feeling for those on the sidelines to witness things like this, Maddox figured. It was easy to believe that it was only a part of being on the sidelines, though. Maddox never quite expected that this sort of thing might happen to him.

Until it happened.

The looming machine was so affected by the cold that even after hours of working, it occasionally had to be broken into again. Maddox pulled hard at one of the handles when it started to stall, already panicking slightly at the thought that it might delay his efforts.

In the end, he pulled too hard. He certainly got it to work again, but not without the machine budging his wrist painfully into the moving loom.

He had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming or cursing, though he couldn't help it when he doubled over in agony, gasping out after managing to pull his wrist away. Felix looked at him with wide eyes, and Maddox only shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a few moments to recover. He ducked down, letting out another unintentional gasp of pain when he tried to move it.

"Are you injured?" said the voice of a guard immediately behind him.

"No," said Maddox shakily, sucking in a breath and turning to face him with his hand behind his back. "I'm fine."

The guard frowned at him suspiciously but said nothing, walking away.

"You okay?" Felix mouthed the moment Maddox looked over to him.

"It's just a bruise," Maddox lied.

Felix knew it was a lie but couldn't say anything, going back to work.

The rest of Maddox's shift passed in slow agony. His hand was already turning colors, which told him that the machine had broken it. He continued working in spite of this, only using the injured hand whenever a guard was particularly close. It hurt so much that he could hardly stop thinking about it, which only made the pain seem worse as it radiated through each simple movement. And with each movement, he wanted to cry or vomit or at least curse.

But, purely out of fear, he remained silent.

He was extraordinarily relieved when the time came to end his work. After saying goodbye to Felix, he hastened out the factory doors to face the bitter cool air outside. It stung at his face, but he breathed the air in, finding it too stifling inside.

There was a familiar figure nearby. He managed to see out of the corner of his eye that it was his classmate Briony, who he occasionally greeted in passing. She was walking in his direction from down the road. Normally he would just wave and move on, but something in her expression told him that she wanted to talk to him, so he started to walk over to her.

"Hey," she called, hurrying over to him with something tucked inside her coat.

"Hi, Briony," said Maddox tiredly.

"What happened to your hand?"

Maddox looked at his hand, which he was cradling rather pathetically against his chest. It was now heavily black and blue.

"Factory accident. It's just a bruise," he repeated.

Briony looked like she didn't believe him (not that he could blame her; his façade wasn't as convincing when said with a grimace of pain), but she said nothing further about it. Maddox tried not to talk too much about personal things when he wasn't at his tenement. He always felt like he was being watched.

"What's this?" he added, gesturing to whatever she was hiding under her coat.

She pulled out some paper with black smudged on a few parts. "The teacher noticed you've been working more and told me to give your schoolwork to you. Sorry," she added, wiggling her fingers, which were stained with what looked like coal. "I was working for a while, too."

"Thanks... That's really thoughtful."

"Wasn't my idea." Briony pulled her coat back over, shivering somewhat in the cold. She nodded to his hand, which he was trying to hide in his own coat. He cringed when he accidentally moved his hand the wrong way. "You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah. Just need to rest it, I guess."

"Hopefully you won't have to work tomorrow."

His heart panicked at the thought, but his wrist woefully agreed. "Hopefully."

They both knew he would.

Briony was looking off into the distance, her eyes narrowed as if she was thinking hard about something. Maddox followed her gaze, only to find that she was looking at all the people around her, who were trudging home just as they were, shuddering in the chill. The man from the workshop earlier was sitting at the marketplace with one of the sellers, his face no longer bloodied but still quite bruised. Then Maddox saw a few beggars lining the street, hoping anyone lucky enough to have gone to the market might spare something for them. But even the market itself didn't have much to spare.

"Anyway," she continued. "Take care."

"You too."

When they parted ways, Maddox heard an unfamiliar sound from above. Curious, he glanced up toward the source, only to find a peculiar-looking black bird sitting on the arch of the door. Its head cocked to the side, looking just as curious as he, though it did so in an unnatural, almost mechanical way, even though he was sure it was still living and breathing.

Entirely unused to seeing birds except in the slightly more forested outer areas of the district, he came to a halt and whistled to it, wondering if it might sing as the other birds did.

This bird simply flew away.

Maddox's first stop after work was to the local hospital, which wasn't so much a hospital as a warehouse in which medical staff routinely surveyed patients. One of the doctors examined his wrist and told him immediately that it was indeed broken; she set him up with a cast around his arm that was sturdy enough to speed the healing process but loose enough for him to still work at the mill. Maddox had a feeling that working with that hand was not very beneficial for proper healing, but even the doctors knew that there was no way around getting out of work unless he wanted his family to starve and his ribs to be broken, too.

"Here's some pain medication," she added, secretively slipping him a bottle of tiny pills for him to hide in his pocket. "You'll need it."

Maddox went ahead and downed one of them the moment he could get the bottle open.

He was exhausted and nearly frozen by the time he got home. When he opened the door, he saw Lior and Amity huddled together on top of the concrete slab, a thin blanket wrapped around them. Lior motioned for him to come over, nodding to the television screen, which was scheduled to project the latest news any minute now.

"What happened to your wrist?" she asked him.

Amity opened her side of the blanket so that Maddox could sit at her side. He huddled with her, letting out a visible breath.

"Accident at the factory," he said simply. "My hand got stuck in the machine for a second."

The projector turned on at that moment, but neither Lior nor Amity were able to watch, only focusing on him.

"When did this happen?"

"Few hours ago."

Amity looked wholly concerned as she delicately lifted his cast to eye level, while Lior seemed to be having trouble hiding her anger.

"They made you keep working, didn't they?"

"No," said Maddox. "I kept working myself."

" _Why_? Why would you keep working?"

But Lior knew why, so she understood and fell silent when he didn't immediately respond. His eyes veered to the glassless window, where a guard appeared on cue, peering in to make sure they were at their necessary places. Maddox, the lights of the television now flickering on the side of his face, couldn't seem to look away even when the guard caught his eye.

"It's just a bruise," he said at last.


	3. Scraps

He had to remember to pop the pain pill into his mouth before arriving to his shift the next day.

The first thing he saw when he walked into the factory was incredulity from his friend Felix, who only stared at him wordlessly as he arrived to his station.

Maddox cringed as he set everything up for his shift, trying to ignore him, but it was as if Felix's stare was boring into his head. He sighed, looking over at him and muttering just above the hum of the factory, "What?"

"What are you doing here?" He glanced briefly at Maddox's arm, which was still in its cast, partially hidden underneath his sleeve and glove. "Thought you wouldn't be here today."

"I'm here to work… like always."

"You're injured, though."

"They don't know that." Maddox nodded to the guards at the door. "We've run out of food, and we can't afford to put in any more debt cards. What else can I do?"

Felix said nothing further, frowning again at his arm before returning to work. "Just try not to make it obvious, I guess." Then he nudged his good side. "Maybe we'll be lucky and not have to put in two more hours, eh?"

Maddox very heavily doubted that.

So he tried not to make it obvious as his friend suggested. He tried his hardest to match his work ethic from the day he broke his wrist—but the cast was only making it harder to act natural, and the guards were taking notice.

At one point, Maddox realized he was starting to lag behind Felix in production time, purely because the pain medication had begun to wear off, and every movement he made resulted in an uncontrollable cringe. The delay was barely noticeable in most cases, but today, it was seemingly too much, too out of place.

The moment he caught the eye of a wandering guard nearby, he knew he was done for.

The guard hastened over, snatching him violently by the hurt arm so that he let out an automatic swear in his pain. Then the guard lifted his sleeve to reveal the cast.

"Broken?" he barked.

"I can still work," said Maddox hastily. The image of Lior and Amity starving for one more night at the concrete table made him suddenly desperate despite the agony. "I worked yesterday after it happened—"

"You lied to your supervisors?"

"No, I—"

"Your actions are causing a disruption."

"I didn't stop working until now, sir." The word 'sir' made a wave of disgust go through him, for he felt that this man was anything but worthy of his respect.

"Yes, and because of this, you are slowing down progress," the guard spat, squeezing his wrist more tightly purely out of spite. "More hours have to be applied to production work because of your kind of ignorance. We cannot risk slowed down production in a time like this!"

" _Why_?" Maddox snapped, unable to help himself. "Are the pigs in the Capitol growing out of their clothes?"

Instantly, he was thrown back against the machinery behind him when the guard socked him squarely in the jaw. Felix jumped back, attempting to run over to help, but another guard came over, shouting, "Get back to work!"

"You can't do that!" Felix yelled. The guard shoved him back.

"Get back to work, or you're next."

"You will regret blaspheming the Capitol," the guard said to Maddox, ignoring the others.

"Maybe what I said I was wrong," said Maddox hotly. "Maybe our blood and sweat is starting to show through again! Maybe they're mad because a piece of my skin got caught in their _stupid fucking fabric_!"

The man drew a gun.

Maddox's first thought was _go ahead_. He didn't care about work or his own safety anymore. This wasn't fair. He was tired, he was starving, he was in pain, and he was angry.

So he lunged forward, bringing the guard in front of him to the ground purely out of spite and sending a right hook to his nose the moment they landed together on the dusty floor. It sent a shock of pain through his arm because he had numbly used the broken one to punch, but the satisfaction of finally causing people like him pain made his own almost unrecognizable.

He was about to punch him again when another guard snatched him up, sending a blast of a hit to his abdomen that knocked the breath out of him. Pain radiated through part of his chest as a result, leaving him helpless on the floor even as they held him up by his arm, where he hung loosely like a ragdoll.

"Anyone else have something to say?" the guard roared, wielding his gun.

At this point, the workers still would have been working, trying their hardest to ignore any scene that came up to distract them—but now they could only stare, leaving production halted for a good few precious minutes.

"Get back to work!"

So they did.

Maddox was dragged into the other room like many others before him. Anyone with ears could guess what happened next.

His trek back home was filled with shame—not because of anyone seeing him, because he knew that nobody could judge him. They could only pity him, only wish to help make the pain go away, though they couldn't even focus on their own. No, the only shame he felt was because—after severely bruising his rib, further injuring his broken wrist, and giving him a black eye and bloodied lip—the guards at his factory suspended him from work for as long as it took for his injuries to heal. The newly sustained injuries were a result of him causing such a long pause in production; Maddox didn't have the strength at this point to tell them that he never paused it in the first place.

When he went to the local hospital area to get treated, the doctor regarded him with a mix of shock and exasperation.

"I had another accident at the factory," he croaked.

"I figured as much," she said. "I just hate to see you back so soon."

Briony's family worked in the markets, but she occasionally volunteered at the hospital due to the increasing amount of sick or hurt people as of late, so when she was sent to treat him, he felt his face get warm with shame again, even when she pressed a cool compress to his eye.

She didn't say much, though. She wasn't one to talk much, always going about with a quiet sort of strength. But by the time he left, she said one thing that stuck out to him and stayed with him the rest of the way home.

"Something needs to change."

The rest of the day was uneventful, filled first with concern from his family and then with the taunting of his own demons as he lay in bed for hours on end to tend to the bruised rib. His sister and housemate kept checking in on him to make sure he was all right. Amity just made sure to keep him company and chat about things that merely distracted and didn't matter, while Lior assumed the nonexistent older sister position by helping him clean his wounds or reminding him to take a new batch of pain pills, which were already beginning to run out due to limited supply.

The next morning, a mandatory announcement woke them all from their sleep, just in time to get up for their strict morning schedules. Maddox felt he had no choice but to join them after a long night of zero sleep.

Amity sat with wide eyes, oohing at the beautiful colors that the Capitol flaunted in their pictures. Maddox came into the room late, looking at her and then at Lior, who only gave him a nervous glance back.

"It's a special," she said calmly. "From the Capitol. Come here."

The special was doing as it had been doing in brief stints throughout the weeks: highlighting the true heroic deeds of each district and how they were equal to the Capitol's glamorous wealth (and maybe, chortled the host, even better).

"The world that we live in, this brilliant world of Panem," he continued, "is just the peace and harmony and hard work that it was founded on. All its citizens are true heroes working toward a pleasant present and an even brighter future. One might say, they're even warriors."

"Tributes," said the co-host. "Tributes to a complex yet powerful system."

The other host laughed. "Tributes and testimonies, indeed."

"They're _really_ laying it on thick, aren't they?" Lior muttered.

"Shh!" Amity waved her hand back at her.

"Don't watch it all," said Maddox, looking for a power button on the television's projector. It didn't appear to have one.

"Why?"

"It'll rot your brain."

"All they're saying are nice things," Amity said coolly. "Why do you hate nice things?"

"I don't hate nice things, I—" Maddox cut off when suddenly a number of shadows appeared near the kitchen window outside. He ventured over, peering through it as he made to sit down.

Just then, a Capitol soldier peered through at the same time, wielding some sort of gadget that beeped when it recognized the television set.

Then he disappeared.

"How many soldiers are there?" Lior whispered once Maddox sank fully into his seat.

"More."

Many more.

Since the recent talks of mild rebellions—including Maddox's—throughout the district, more soldiers began to file into the area to fill up what used to be merciful gaps in the guarding system, there to quickly quell any other potential lashing out at the citizens' superiors.

The arrival of new enforcements didn't help much to calm said citizens—nor did the district-wide announcement that followed the extravagant celebrations of their achievements before.

"Due to recent worker shortages," the announcement read, repeating in a scroll across the bottom of the screen, "District 8 citizens shall be advised that children from the ages of ten and up shall be removed from classes to provide labor until further notice."

Reason wasn't quite the Capitol's strong suit, but the district attempted it anyway. They argued that the environment was too harsh for children as young as ten and even for teenagers slightly younger than Maddox, and they argued that these children needed school to carry on an educated population, which, they knew, was all the Capitol wanted if they still wanted competent workers. But the Capitol was insistent, even going so far as to cancel school for the next week to allow the children some time to adjust. By that time, the citizens pleaded. Knowing that cases like Maddox were far more common among the young and the very old, they attempted to offer giving up more debt cards to fill the gaps rather than risk their children's lives—but debt cards were running out nearly as quickly as the food they wanted in exchange for them, and the Capitol didn't care about the families so much as the state of production itself.

At that point, there wasn't much room for reason anymore.

When little Amity had to trade in her history book to replace Maddox and others out of commission in the harsh environment of District 8's factories, it wasn't just Maddox and Lior who were angry; it angered everyone within the district's radius, especially those with children who had to skip school to further provide for families that were very quickly dying off.

None were angrier, though, than Felix Falls.

Days later, Maddox forced himself to walk to the town square, where a strangely large number of people were milling about. With the others in his household now working and with him out of commission, he took the task of venturing to the markets day after day in hopes of doing at least a little to help provide for them. He was rummaging for a spare debt card in slight desperation upon seeing fresh meat when he heard the familiar voice of Felix leading chanting across the street.

Felix had skipped working at the factory that morning despite repeated threats, and he stood at the town square with a number of other people, many of them chanting that enough was enough. Some guards began to walk over to the scene, preparing already to silence the protest that had barely begun.

Always more of an outspoken person, Felix situated himself directly in front of one of the guards, yelling about the injustices so that anyone within range could hear, could realize that someone was going against the state of things.

In essence, so that someone could see someone else doing the unthinkable.

"Spreading propaganda!" he called while the chants of 'enough is enough' continued, buzzing in the background—quiet chanting, almost as though they were afraid of being heard despite their presence there already. But Felix wasn't afraid. "Starving us, overworking us, making the people we love pay for it if we happen to raise our voices once!"

More guards flocked to the area, leaving Maddox suddenly panicking when they neared him.

"It's time for a change!" Felix bellowed. "The Capitol provides? The Capitol _does not provide,_ no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears we give them! We feed the Capitol, but they _don't feed us_!"

Some people let out yells of agreement among the growing crowd.

"It's time for a system that works for all of us, not just the lucky few. A system that provides for all of us—not a system that steals the fruits of our labor while we're _killing ourselves just to put some scraps on the table_!"

More people cheered in response.

Maddox could hardly hear what he was saying as he stopped in his tracks, ignoring the meat on display entirely. He could hear the anger in his friend's voice—could hear the indignant tone and the simultaneous mix of fear and bravery that protesting seemed to require.

He couldn't hear what else he said when he stepped over to the arriving line of soldiers, who only stared back, completely impassive. He couldn't hear what Felix said when one of them reached for the gun at his side.

It didn't matter what else he said… not to the growing number of spectators, not to the guards, and certainly not to Felix—for he was quickly reprimanded.

"We don't just need a change," he said with finality. "We need a _revolution_!"

He was very abruptly cut off by a gunshot to the head.

Maddox didn't have the breath to gasp or the conscience to move. He could only stare in numb shock while the suddenly silenced Felix crumpled to the ground.

And absolute silence everywhere else followed, save for the eerie echoes of the gunshot against the town square's gray concrete surroundings. Nobody moved or made a sound, not even the newly-arrived force of town guards. It took them a few moments until they finally stepped closer to the body carefully, murmuring to everyone that they ought to stay back.

But they didn't stay back.

"He was a sixteen-year-old boy," said one woman at long last, barely budging as the guards came over. Her voice was thick with tears and gathering anger. "He—He was just a _child_!"

" _Stop killing our children_!"

Then, as if that was their cue, the gathered crowd leaped forward and broke the silence for good.

Screaming, shouting, challenging the soldiers with "how dare you" and "how could you" and finally with a resounding "enough is enough." They yelled insults and admissions and cries of injustice and poverty and the very state of things. They got in the faces of those who didn't even flinch in return, all grabbing their weapons in unison, as if in response to an unspoken order.

Maddox could only look on, watching from his safe haven at the market's entrance while the crowd grew larger and more frightened and simultaneously more courageous.

Soldiers started running over from their held positions in the more populated areas of the square to break up the commotion, especially when the frustration and fear and anger got louder and louder, to the point that everyone in the area was now watching, now seeing the vision of the dead body of a boy, the trail of blood beneath his fallen head, and the efforts of the Capitol to hide the results.

The crowd was finally silenced when one of the recently-arrived soldiers stepped into the center of the ring and made three warning shots into the air. Then he aimed it at the closest part of the crowd, making everyone duck or recoil with gasps, covering their heads.

"One more word, and the next one goes through someone else's head!" he bellowed, resting his finger on the trigger.

Maddox could have heard a pin drop, even from the citizens not involved like him—including Briony's father manning the market, who recognized him enough to pull him behind his tall stature. The protestors gathered their wits, caught their heaving breaths, and they stepped back when more and more guards began to draw their weapons as well, pointing them at the incensed crowd.

"Let this very unfortunate accident be a reminder to you all that the Capitol is not your enemy in regards to your safety. Your own people are." He gestured to Felix's body, which some people were now covering with a white sheet purely out of respect for the dead. "Let what happened today be a warning that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated and will only end in suffering!"

Nobody else responded.

" _Now move_!"

So they did. They had no choice.

But they didn't forget.

They knew—they all knew—that the penalty for raising your voice meant death. So people began to raise their voices without speaking at all.


	4. Property of the Capitol

District 8 didn't do funerals.

The closest thing to a funeral that they could do was much like how they did their weddings: completely to the point, without fluff, without grandiose songs or tears. In the district's funerals, they burned the bodies to ashes, buried them into a pile in the ground if they could, and sent them off with solemn three-finger salute, which meant goodbye to those they loved. Then it was back to business or, if you were lucky, back home, where you could cry in peace.

For Maddox, the prospect of death had a numbing effect, where you knew you were sad and knew that they deserved better, but you couldn't quite express it because it was all you saw. He remembered his unexplainable sorrow when his parents died because he hadn't quite realized how much death there was. This time, though, he knew. He knew how much there was and how much there was going to be, if the current trend had anything to say about it.

He supposed that was why more people were angry than sad when it came to Felix.

Felix's speech and the resulting reprimanding caused a shockwave of contempt throughout the vicinity, though even that wasn't a new feeling. Traces of such contempt for the system were hidden in accumulating flecks within the core of the more constant feeling of fear. This consistent contempt only came out when fear became too much; Maddox remembered his fear and anger teetering back and forth in his fight with a guard, who would have killed him without much more reason. Maddox knew that if he didn't kill him, he certainly wouldn't make it out in one piece - and he didn't. He didn't because the Capitol's contempt was far more powerful than theirs could ever be.

There was a common understanding in the districts that the citizens could never return that contempt in kind, however more fervently they felt it. Everyone knew that they had to obey the rules and regulations or else be punished. It was obvious in how violently they were reprimanded, in how much fear they held in response to the mere threat of the higher powers of the Capitol.

But nobody had anticipated any punishment for actively, openly speaking against it. It was almost as if nobody had thought it possible, especially because nobody had ever tried it. It was assumed that this was how things were always supposed to be—that they did the work, they got the means to live, and life carried on as it has since the resource war, which no one wanted to go back to again, if they could help it.

But now they didn't have the means to live. Now life wasn't carrying on as it had.

If anything, the resource war was back, only this time it was thinly veiled as an empty promise.

Lior once stated, _that's just how it is_.

But did it have to be?

Maddox had been restless the entire night and many nights after Felix was killed, and he ruminated over all of this and all of what Felix had said in those precious few moments left of his life. Did it have to be this way? They were able to silence one voice quickly, but what about the others? What would happen if everyone fought back against it? What was holding everyone back, since they vastly outnumbered all of those in the Capitol and beyond?

He already knew the answer: Fear was holding them back.

As it always did.

This kind of fear was an unrecognized kind in the midst of other apprehension-inducing distractions. The power of the Capitol was never really spoken of, but it was apparent. It was apparent in the warning glares and the stances of the guards, and even in the very fact that they had guards at all. It was apparent in the way they were beaten if they put a toe out of line. It was apparent in the fact that they could either work to provide for those they couldn't see, or they and their families would starve, and more would have to risk their lives in their place.

The Capitol itself, miles and miles away in their mountains of luxury, offered a guise of prosperity for the work of those in the districts, but it also touted an overall sense of power—power woven through the flowery words of their attempts to paint the districts as the true source.

But now the fear was realized, and now it was out in the open. There was no mere punishment anymore; there was murder versus free will. There was the power of the Capitol to cover it up. There was the fact that there was nowhere to hide and everyone to hide from.

And the people knew, or they were starting to. Of course, the fear continued to prosper, but in the face of all that was happening, further desperation was taking root.

More people were dying of hunger and illness. Less food was available in exchange for more and more debt cards. More children were getting hurt in the factories. Even to the children, death was beginning to have the same numbing effect as it did to everyone else. For the time being, until more able-bodied people could provide labor, schools were no longer in session.

Maddox wasn't sure what was causing the shortage or what was making things take such a dire turn as they were now. All he knew was that this couldn't be all. _That's just how it is_ was a lie that they all believed.

But he couldn't dare himself to reveal this—not publicly, not in the eye of the very power that surrounded him while he floundered in a cast and sported nothing but rags and a growling stomach. Felix was braver than he was. Felix, unfortunately, was braver than most.

Bravery wasn't always loud and proud, though. A few brave souls started to speak without using their voices to do so.

The Capitol tried not to notice for the longest time, but it proved to be difficult, especially when others started to pay attention to what the silent voices were saying. Initially, there were simple messages scrawled on the side of City Hall—an unspeakable act, considering everything else.

The first time, it was in tiny letters in pen, only legible to those paying enough attention: _The system is flawed._

The next day, the message was erased, likely by some observant guards.

The day after that, a new message replaced it in the same spot, this time much bigger and written in more permanent paint: _Prosperity is a lie._

The message was painted over. And the next message. And the next.

Maddox had no idea if it was the same person doing this, somehow secretly writing the messages they were all thinking when the eyes of the Capitol weren't scrutinizing their every move. But then the messages started appearing in other places—the same messages with different handwriting, graffiti on the City Hall, on the sides of the most run-down tenements, on the walls along the central village, and even on the doors of every factory in the district. Some started to appear in children's handwriting from within the factories themselves, though even there it was mostly dominated by adults who knew exactly what they were doing.

 _We are hungry_ , they read.

 _We are dying_.

Then, one quiet morning before everyone headed to work, the words that guards once painted over were far too loud and busy for anyone to ignore any longer.

The latest Capitol propaganda played on a loop on hovering screens while he took his sister to her shift at the factory, his free hand in hers. But what surrounded him interested him more than the inflated achievements the Capitol touted; groups of guards or Capitol personnel surrounded different areas, attempting to scrub off or paint over giant shows of graffiti that were everywhere the eye could see. They all said the same thing this time, over and over like a mantra, painted in red colors all over the surrounding doors and walls of the city center. The paint must have been hastily used, as newly dried droplets looked to be seeping toward the ground like blood streaming from a wound.

THE CAPITOL DOES NOT PROVIDE.

Until now, there were no efforts to address the recent influx of silent voices. There was no reason; the messages would be gone soon enough, and as long as no one talked about it, no one could press any further. But something about the statement caught the Capitol's attention.

And from there, the attention never went away.

" _Let it be known that any further attempts to deface Capitol property with lies will be punished_!" a Capitol guard was yelling through a megaphone. Maddox cringed when he aimed it toward him. Amity put her free hand over her ear. "We _will_ find any perpetrators who fail to recognize this warning! We will track you, we will find you, and you will be reprimanded _severely_." He hesitated, turning back around to address those that hadn't yet been rendered deaf by his announcement. "We have eyes all over the district. You will not see them, but they will see you. And when they see you, they had better see citizens of District 8 _following the laws of the Capitol_."

(A bird cawed from its position on top of one of the ruined walls.)

Maddox shuffled himself and his sister away with a scowl. Every step they took toward the factory, her hand began to shake more and more in his.

He hated walking with her there. He tried to reason, tried to suggest that he was better (he wasn't) and that he could work in his condition (he couldn't), but as if now, he was still suspended from working until he healed enough. Amity hated the factory as much as he did, if not more—not just because of the general stench or the chance for injury or the strictness of her overseers, but mostly because she couldn't go to school. Amity considered education a gift, and not being able to go to school and learn about the world was far more of an insult than the idea of working like her older brother.

Maddox wasn't sure he liked what they were learning at school anyway. He would have preferred for her to be there instead of here, though—especially because a child was killed in an accident not too far from her station. Amity was used to death like the rest of them, but seeing one of her own being so affected by the state of things made her increasingly terrified to face them.

Presently, her eyes were wide as she watched them try to erase the messages of the voices crying out for help. Maddox couldn't tell if it was out of fear or surprise or maybe a bit of both. But he saw the guard with the megaphone eyeing her, trailing her gaze, so Maddox broke her attention away but tugging lightly at her arm. "Don't want to be late like last time."

The very idea made her quicken her pace.

They took a long stroll through a graffiti-laden alleyway, where some people sat in their homes with broken gazes and sunken skin. Amity tried to offer them smiles, and while some smiled back, others didn't seem to have the energy.

In time, they got to the factory, and Amity turned around at the door to bid farewell to her brother for the day. Maddox noticed the uncertainty in her face and crouched down in front of her, pulling out a pen that he had stolen from the ground of one of the graffiti sites. He held out his arm as a signal, and she copied the movement, outstretching her arm and pulling up her sleeve. Then he wrote what he hoped might get her through the day.

 _You can do it._

Amity made a small smile as he pulled the sleeve back down and clapped her on the shoulder. "See you in a few hours. Be safe."

"Bye, Maddox."

Then he left, because he had no other choice.

He stopped back in the city center to take a breather, finding that walking too long made his breath short and his ribs ache. He sat on the curb, idly checking out the cast on his arm. Something on the very inside caught his eye; he could lift the rigid material just enough to read it.

 _Made in District 8. Property of the Capitol._

Maddox then looked around, seeing how the guards looked at those that passed. Seeing how the buildings were more precious than the people that surrounded them. Seeing how the disclaimer on his cast made him more uneasy than it normally would have, if only because he felt like it was describing him and the people of his district more than the materials the district made—the materials he probably made sometime in the factory.

So he wrote something else on top of the indents, just inside the edge of the cast so no one else could see.

 _Made by me. Property of no one._


	5. Eyes

_The Horn of Plenty is Empty._

That was the latest slanderous graffiti, which surprised most, as it had been a few weeks since the perpetrator's last appearance.

The shortage of food and increase of work was transforming District 8 into a more desperate situation. People were dying or becoming injured. Some began to lose their children to the cold of the factories, dirty disease-ridden areas, or wounds from work accidents too fatal for already fragile bodies. It had come to the point that people were beginning to turn up dead mysteriously, mainly attributed to an increase in suicides.

There had been small spur-of-the-moment rebellions from people who had had enough, surely, but they were quickly quelled with threats, added work time, or even injuries like in Maddox's case. It didn't make the idea of these tiny revolts any less effective, however. If anything, it only made people angrier than before.

Maddox supposed that was what finally spurned the appearance of the unwelcome graffiti once again. He wasn't sure what had allowed the person—or people—writing on the walls to even gain the energy to do what they were doing; he wondered if such a thing gave them adrenaline or even a sense of hope that drove them further into their efforts. Either way, he could understand the idea of hope keeping them going, especially because more and more people were starting to take notice.

Even other districts.

They first noticed it one morning, when a crew from the Capitol, in dire need of some excitement in their lives, visited the districts to interview some of the "citizens" who were entirely too happy to show them the inner workings of one of the (empty) factories and even the schools, which had re-opened that day purely to provide the image of hardworking students taking advantage of the Capitol's timely education. The surrounding district had been ordered to stay in their homes to give room for the Capitol newcomers to explore the city center without any trouble, so nobody could walk the streets of the district, especially not the area by City Hall.

Nobody could, according to the rules. But a few bold souls did.

Near the end of the segment, the camera flashed to City Hall to get a glimpse of the Capitol's favorite slogan, only to find the worst instance of rebellion thus far.

The people somehow managed to sneak out while everyone else was inside the factory, allowing the perfect chance for them to write their messages. And the messages were quite clear, restating the cries written or spoken before: _Stop killing our children… Prosperity is a lie… The Horn of Plenty is empty… The system is flawed… The Capitol does not provide… We are starving…_ We are dying.

The only Capitol part of the building was the slogan that read _Panem Today, Panem Tomorrow, Panem Forever_. But even that was struck through with broad strokes of blood red paint, and hastily scrawled words were written just below it, words spoken by Felix moments before his death and echoed by any others affected by all that was around them.

WE NEED A REVOLUTION

The camera only lingered on it for a few seconds before its holder realized and jerked away, only to reveal the run-down tenements behind it that the visitors had been trying to hide in all the shots.

As the scene was live, it couldn't be helped until it was too late. The Capitol later commented, calling it a glitch that was unintended, but everyone saw it. Speculation on the content started to pop up, especially among the citizens of District 8, most of whom knew exactly what was going on but didn't dare mention it aloud.

The authorities finally took action after neglecting the defamation for so long. They did just as they promised before, somehow tracing the scenes back specifically to the culprits. There were, indeed, eyes everywhere, eyes they couldn't see which could see them.

And, indeed, they were reprimanded severely.

The citizens of District 8 were invited—or, rather, forced—to gather for a mandatory viewing one evening. They were locked in their homes to watch it on their screens, as if the guards didn't want any interference for whatever was going on. Maddox was overly cautious as the scene unfolded, where the familiar guard with the booming voice announced vaguely that this—whatever "this" was—was what slandering the Capitol or straying from the rules would result in.

Some people were ushered onto a stage in the center of the vandalized town square just behind him, their hands locked behind their backs, their heads ducked as they got into their specified places, which the guards had no trouble pointing out to them.

"What's going on?" Amity asked.

"Don't know," said Maddox.

He could recognize some of the people. A few were around his age, people he had seen in the halls at school what seemed like eons ago, but most of them were adults, all of whom looked tired, tired like the rest of them. They also looked defiant, keeping their heads up in a stubborn way, even as the guards around them placed misshapen bags over their heads.

In the midst of the confusion, the main guard was given a scroll, which he unraveled before him.

"These citizens of your district," he read, "have been charged with orchestrating acts of sedition against the rules and regulations provided by the Capitol. Per the request of our President of Panem, we are obliged to provide locally televised evidence of penance for their crimes after repeated requests to cease were not adhered to, so that citizens shall be warned that acting against the Capitol's wishes will only result in punishment."

"For graffiti?" Maddox gestured to the screen. "There's graffiti everywhere."

"I guess they don't like it when graffiti says we need a revolution," said Lior in a low voice, eyeing the window, where guards dwelled just outside to prevent anyone from escaping the confines of their homes.

Maddox said nothing further, his heart picking up in pace as the speech went on. Lior seemed to realize just what the punishment was just as they made a movement; she snatched Maddox tightly by the arm—the bad arm, so that let out a pained gasp—and covered her mouth with her free hand.

"What?"

Maddox paid close attention to the footage to find the guards drawing their guns.

The answer came to him just before Lior said it aloud.

"It's an execution."

Moments after her words, the guns pointed at the back of each person's head, and simultaneously, they pulled the triggers.

Amity screamed, and Lior snatched her into a hug, shaking. Maddox could only stare, feeling suddenly cold as the defiant citizens crumpled to the ground like Felix, blood soaking through the sheets over their heads, sheets that were made sometime in the factories solely for this purpose. Maddox felt sick to his stomach, realizing that something as simple as writing messages on the wall could result in a death sentence.

Then again, didn't many things? Failing to show up to work. Getting injured in crucial times. Talking ill of the Capitol. Talking ill of the Capitol in writing… Guards at their windows, authorities somehow tracking people, spying on them, threatening their safe havens.

Maddox thought the term archaic now. There was no safe haven.

After lingering on the dead bodies for the longest time, the camera finally panned back to the outspoken guard, who was still reading.

"The Capitol provides security and structure for you. The Capitol thrives because of you. The system of Panem would fail without you. Therefore, any attempts to incite rebellion, even the smallest kind, will only result in your own pain and the pain of your families." He lowered the scroll to look at the camera directly. "You have been warned."

Static.

Needless to say, the graffiti stopped. For a while, it remained on the City Hall long enough for people to continually notice it as they passed by, but the Capitol thought it too long. In time, a demolition crew was sent from District 2 to finally knock the building down and rebuild from scratch, as the paint was decidedly permanent and entirely unsupportive of the order and cleanliness the town square usually presented.

Shrouded by clouds of dust, Maddox had managed to swipe a tiny rock from the crumbled remains that day. He put it in his pocket for safe keeping.

The efforts to clean up a dirty period of time were evident even with the citizens, who didn't want another public punishment for anyone if they could help it. So, for a while, they managed, going through each day as they had before—hungry, exhausted, in pain… and irrevocably angry.

The anger was only apparent to those who could see it, who recognized it in their peers' eyes, while the Capitol remained convinced that the brief chapter of unspoken rebellion was over. And with so many able to see it within the confines of District 8, others followed suit—not in the same silent frustration that they held in their hearts so often, but a new rekindled fire that said _We need to do something_.

Such anger was certainly an unanticipated response to the Capitol's warning. Maddox figured that the attempts to incite fear had the complete opposite effect when fear was already so prevalent before. There wasn't much more that such widespread fear could do except make the people start to question just why they were so afraid to begin with.

The answer always pointed to the same source.

But with the wounds of recent happenings still fresh, any anger remained inside—never expressed in words spoken or written. The televised implications of breaking the rules more openly had certainly provided the shockwave that the President wanted. They thought they could use their voices to describe their distaste with the game of life without saying a word, but now they couldn't even think of anything but their part in the Capitol's structure without the idea that they might be reprimanded in some form.

So they had no choice but to comply.

Maddox showed up for a check-up at the hospital, which was overrun at this point by the sick and dying. He felt like he didn't deserve to be there with so many worse off, but the staff refused to let him go and sat him down for his checkup to make sure he was healing correctly.

"Will I be able to go back to work?" he asked.

"Slow your roll," said the doctor, examining his bare chest to see how his bruised rib was faring. "It's not even been two months."

"It feels like longer." Maddox leaned forward, lowering his voice to a mutter. "My sister can't keep working in my place."

"She doesn't have much of a choice right now, whether you go back or not."

"I can't sit here and do nothing while my family starves."

The doctor stared at him for a moment at the words, even causing her to look around to make sure no one heard. (The recent happenings left all of them rather paranoid, for good reason.)

"You don't have much of a choice either," she said at last. She gestured for him to pull the shirt back down and gently lifted his broken arm. Then she sighed, recognizing something in Maddox's expression. "If you're convincing enough, you may be able to go back to work, but I highly recommend that you don't. Your rib is much better, but your arm still needs a chance to heal itself.".

"I don't think it'll ever heal. People keep grabbing it." When the doctor eyed him, he added hastily, "I mean other people. Harsher… people."

She understood his tone and heaved a sigh. "Yes, they aren't very in tune with the state of their workers unless it's too inconvenient." She paused. "Don't… mention me saying that."

"Saying what?" Maddox made his tone light.

The doctor smiled knowingly, but the smile began to fade after she noticed something in the margins of his cast. After a very long moment of silence, she leaned closer to look at it. Maddox started to panic despite everything; he had forgotten about what he had written there.

After a few beats, the doctor straightened up. "I think we should replace your cast. This one is getting a bit flimsy with all the action it's gotten, and we certainly don't want that if we want you healing correctly." She wheeled backwards in her chair, grabbing a dirty clipboard from the edge. "I will send you to get a replacement immediately."

"Why?" asked Maddox pointedly. "This isn't vandalism."

The doctor looked back at him, her eyes wide. Then she returned to where he was, lowering her voice, too. "It's not something that the Capitol wants to see. And _I_ don't want to see you with a bloodied bag over your head that says _Property of the Capitol_."

Maddox said nothing in response.

"I'll send you over for a new cast," she added, clearing her throat. "You definitely need one with more structure, now that you aren't working anymore."

After the hospital visit, Maddox trekked home, keeping his head low purely by instinct. Only when he heard an unusual noise nearby did he look up to see a familiar bird perched on top of the concrete wall beside him. He whistled to it as he had before to a similar bird, but it didn't respond, only cocking its head in a strangely mechanical fashion.

He understood why when the noise happened again. He had been looking straight into the bird's eyes when it came, accompanied by the fluttering of a camera lens focusing.

Completely unnerved at this point, Maddox averted his eyes and rushed away, just as the bird flew away with a flap of its black wings.

It was true, he supposed. They did have eyes everywhere.


End file.
